Re: gEDA-user: Finished drawing two sided board in PCB. Any comment?

[9000 VAX <vax9000@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/29/05, DJ Delorie <dj@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > I uploaded a new file that zipped every gbr files.
> 
> Why not just upload the .pcb file?

This is because I am not ready to make it public at this early stage.
I am sorry for the inconvenience.

> 
> > I will check the clearance against the manufacturer's requrement
> > (33each.com for prototyping).
> 
> 33each is really Advanced Circuits, who worked with me to get PCB's
> gerber outputs right.  They're great folks; please let them know that
> your board was made with PCB and thank them for their support!
> 
> They also have a bare bones special, if you can make do with no mask
> or silk, you only need to pay for one board.

I will check that option. Thank you.

> 
> > All pads are 55mil/29mil and  all vias are 46mil/29mil(power) and
> > 36mil/20mil(signal).
> 
> Also, make sure all the pads adn vias that connect to your ground and
> power planes have thermals when they can.  I noticed some of them
> didn't, which might make soldering difficult.
> 
I don't use thermal around vias because I don't know how to do that in
PCB. Also it seems there is no need for vias to have thermal, since
vias are solder masked by PCB and I will be unable to put solder in
the via holes any way. I will double check pads for thermals. Actually
I have already found some places that my "fake thermals" made by short
traces do not join to the ground polygan.

PCB is a wonderful software but I think there are places that PCB
software can be improved. One is thermal. Sometimes the ground polygan
approaches the pad from one side only, and the thermal should be added
to that side of the pad only. The other is polygans. Users should be
able to move one corner of the polygan, just like how they move a
trace. The third is that user should be able to disable one layer that
is grouped with other layers, without disabling all layers that are
grouped with it.

vax, 9000